Columns

Auf Wiedersehen to Dave’s Muppet show

When Angela Merkel joins David Cameron for a working dinner in Downing Street
this Wednesday, I wonder if the prime minister will introduce himself to the
German chancellor as “Statler” and invite William Hague to answer to the
name “Waldorf”. Last month the German magazine Der Spiegel, allegedly after
a briefing from Merkel’s aides, described a Europe “in which the British are
at best spectators in the gallery, like Statler and Waldorf, the two old men
on The Muppet Show”.

To refresh the memory: these were two disagreeable old codgers whose only
contribution was to criticise and heckle those doing their best on the
stage. That, at least, has the gentle edge of humour: in recent weeks the
language emanating from Germany and other European Union member states about
Britain has been unprecedentedly hostile — even before last Wednesday’s
Commons vote in which the Labour party joined forces with the most